Again from Chuck Klosterman's 2003 "Low Culture Manifesto" Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs:
The reason Pam Anderson can't date Michael Jordan is because being the modern [Marilyn] Monroe means there is nothing understated about your sexuality. At all. That's what I mean when I say the gap between sexuality and classic greatness has expanded beyond recognition; there is something inherently understated about the term classical, and there's obviously nothing understated about Pammy.
Sleeping with Pam would destroy Jordan's ethos; you can't be the hero to an eight-year-old boy in Duluth and the paramour to 107-pound public orgasmatron. But the larger problem is that dating the Michael Jordans of the world is not part of Pam Anderson's job description. Since Pam is the hyperaccelerated manifestation of contemporary sexuality, she is socially obligated to deliver her most intimate gifts to those who represent contemporary America. That's what Marilyn did; she gave her body to the post-World War II archetypes of sport, art, and politics. She was the lover of---at least for---classic greatness. Pam's in the same position, but she has to be the lover of postmodern greatness. That's why we all had to watch her give a blow job to the drummer from Motley Crue.
The newfangled postmodern sex goddess can't just sleep with a cool guy; she needs to sleep with the entire "concept" of celebrity. For people born in the seventies and eighties, the "concept" of celebrity has replaced people like Joe DiMaggio. On the surface, this probably seems paradoxical, since DiMaggio was a celebrity. But DiMaggio was a celebrity when "celebrity" wasn't a concept; it was merely a designation. If you asked anyone in 1951 why DiMaggio was a celebrity (or even if you asked someone that question today), they could undoubtedly give a satisfactory answer.
However, it's impossible to explain why Tommy Lee is a celebrity. You can't say "because he's a rock star," because he's not; the last record Tommy Lee made that lots of people liked was Dr. Feelgood, which came out in 1989. Yet Tommy is far more famous now than he was in 1989, and it's because he's directed his energy into being a celebrity in the conceptual sense. He is famous for being famous, and for behaving famously, and for taking drugs, and for having his relationship with Pam Anderson available on the pay-per-view menu of most hotels (which makes him more famous, but which only happened because he was famous). And he is exactly the type of man Pam Anderson should be with. This is not a criticism of Pam or a backhanded compliment to Tommy; it's just sort of true.
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